Senate deal to revive year-long Pell Grants

FIRST LOOK: SENATE DEAL TO REVIVE ‘SUMMER PELL’ — Senate appropriators have struck a bipartisan deal to expand Pell Grant eligibility to low-income students attending classes year-round, sources familiar with the negotiations tell Morning Education. Sens. Patty Murray and Roy Blunt will include language restoring year-round Pell eligibility — often called “summer Pell” — as part of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill that will be marked up by a subcommittee Tuesday. The sources said the change would benefit approximately one million students who could see, on average, a roughly $1,650 boost to their Pell award.

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— Congress in 2011 cut the benefit to shore up the costs of the Pell Grant program and avoid having to lower the maximum award amount. The Obama administration suggested making that cut at the time, arguing that the program’s costs didn’t justify its benefit. But the White House has since reversed course. Earlier this year, the administration included year-round eligibility as part of an overall $2 billion proposal [http://politico.pro/22HPKf0] to expand the Pell Grant program.

— Both Murray and Blunt have also previously called for restoring year-round Pell, as has Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, who included the expansion in his FAFSA simplification bill.

— Community colleges, which have long pushed to bring back year-round Pell, are hopeful about this week’s markup, according to David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis at the American Association of Community Colleges. “Of all the many student aid issues, community college presidents care the most about the restoration of the year-round Pell Grant,” he told Morning Education. “The reason is simple — community college students want to and need to attend school continuously.”

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT EYES NEW STATE AUTHORIZATION RULES: The Obama administration is renewing its effort to get states to beef up their oversight of online college programs, two years after it indefinitely delayed the controversial plan for new state authorization regulations. The Education Department’s previous proposals would essentially require states to play a more active role in approving online programs that don’t have a physical presence in their state. Many colleges and universities criticized the plan, which they said would place unnecessary burdens on distance education programs that enroll students in multiple states. And some state education regulators balked, too, arguing that they don’t have the resources to oversee more institutions. But consumer advocates have said students need the extra state protection.

— The department last week sent a proposed regulation to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review [http://1.usa.gov/28exZYL] before it’s publicly-released in the coming months. It’s not yet clear how that proposal might differ from what the department considered during a 2014 negotiated rulemaking session. One new development is the popularity of the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, an interstate compact that dozens of states have adopted in an attempt to streamline the approval process for online programs seeking to operate across state lines. Yet critics of for-profit colleges have said they’re concerned such agreements do not go far enough to protect students.

— Department spokeswoman Dorie Nolt tells Morning Education: “This administration continues to work to ensure students and taxpayers are protected from unscrupulous colleges. We also need states to do their part. We conducted several public hearings and three rounds of negotiated rulemaking on this issue in 2014-15. We wanted to make sure that we fully considered the issue before publishing a proposed regulation for public comment. Now that we have had that opportunity, we sent a draft for OMB review.”

CHRISTIAN STUDENTS SEE WIN IN NORTH CAROLINA: A federal district judge in North Carolina over the weekend issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts a North Carolina State University policy requiring students or student groups to obtain written permission before speaking or distributing fliers about a cause or set of beliefs. The preliminary injunction comes in a case brought by one Christian student group, Grace Christian Life, which says NC State’s policy is a constitutional violation of free speech. The group also says the policy is unfairly enforced. Lawyers from the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the students, expected the judge to issue an injunction because during a hearing last week, the judge said he had “grave concerns about the breadth of the policy.” The preliminary injunction will halt the policy while the case is pending. The order: http://politico.pro/1TVAsCS.

FOR-PROFIT COLLEGE ORGANIZATION SEEKS A MAKEOVER: Members of the national for-profit college trade group, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, are weighing a name change at their convention today in Orlando, Fla. It’s the second time in the last several that the trade group has rebranded itself, as its industry continues to bleed students amid negative headlines and government scrutiny. Previously, it was the Career College Association.

NEW CIVIL RIGHTS DATA ON ITS WAY: The Education Department will release on Tuesday its annual Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-14 school year, spokeswoman Dorie Nolt says. The federal trove of data contains information about every public school in the country and examines various race and equity issues. The data release is among several events the Obama administration is holding this week to highlight its equity agenda.

GROUPS PUSH LAUSD ON ‘WANDING’ POLICY: A diverse coalition of groups recently signed onto a letter urging Los Angeles Unified School District to halt or revise the district’s metal detector search policy that they say unfairly criminalizes students and breaks down trust between them, teachers and the community. Education reform groups and traditional public school advocacy groups have signed onto the letter, including United Teachers of Los Angeles, Teach for America, StudentsMatter, Dignity in Schools and more. They’re worried about instances where students are randomly pulled aside to go through metal detectors or pulled aside for “wanding.” “Our concern is that so-called ‘random wanding’ alienates students, discourages them from attending school, creates a negative environment that undermines trust and respect, runs counter to restorative justice practices, and effectively treats children as young as 10 years old as criminal suspects,” they write. The letter: http://politico.pro/1U39E1N.

— The groups are urging the district to take a more comprehensive approach to school safety. “For example, many schools are employing restorative justice practices that prioritize repairing the harm caused by unacceptable behaviors, an approach that requires trust and cooperation among all,” they write. “Additionally, by maintaining small school environments and low student-to-adult ratios, educators have been able to build trusting relationships with students that enable them to intervene, if necessary, long before any student’s safety on campus is jeopardized and without unnecessarily criminalizing our children.”

TROUBLED ACCREDITOR TAKES MORE HEAT: The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which has been assailed for maintaining the accreditation of Corinthian Colleges until the chain collapsed last year, “must go,” Ben Miller from the Center for American Progress writes in a new report. Miller argues that his new analysis strongly suggests that “ACICS is incapable of acting as a sufficient assessor of college quality and that its repeated poor judgment leaves millions of students and billions of taxpayer dollars at risk.” Among the conclusions? Seventeen institutions or companies approved at least in part by ACICS have been subject to a federal or state investigation. Yet, 90 campuses from 12 of the 17 have been named to ACICS’ honor roll since 2009. (Two Corinthian campuses were named to the honor roll in 2014). Ahead of the Education Department’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity meeting to discuss ACICS’ fate later this month, several advocates and attorneys general have also called for the Education Department to shoot down its federal recognition [http://politico.pro/1XvnKfa]. Read the report here: http://ampr.gs/1Y1Qwm5.

NO CANDIDATE LEFT BEHIND: So Paul Ryan scolded Donald Trump for his racially-based attacks against the federal judge in California overseeing a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump University. [http://politi.co/1srT6Gs] Trump, in turn, on Sunday, expanded his argument by suggesting that a Muslim judge might not be able to rule impartially in a Trump lawsuit either -- because of his call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. More from POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney: http://politi.co/1Xu1UZG

— Meanwhile, POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Maggie Severns report that lawyers suing Trump in the California case plan to file with a federal court in San Diego excerpts of videos of Trump’s two recent depositions, likely triggering a fight over whether they should be made public: http://politi.co/1RUxIhI

— First Lady Michelle Obama at City College in New York offered her own barely veiled critique of Trump. She warned graduates in her final commencement address that while their diverse backgrounds are to be celebrated, they should beware of those who "build up walls to keep people out." More from POLITICO’s Nick Gass: http://politi.co/1sT6rr2

REPORT ROLL CALL

— Jim Cowen, interim executive director of the Collaborative for Student Success, warns in a new memo of the “fiscal and logistical challenges” states face that have moved away from the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments: http://bit.ly/1stJb38.

— The Learning Policy Institute finds that teachers increase their effectiveness as they gain experience, and this pattern continues into the second and third decade of their careers: http://bit.ly/1UjwL49.

— The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University finds in a new study that intelligent adaptive learning technology can drive achievement gains in elementary math: http://bit.ly/1X2WTX1.

SYLLABUS

— Portland Superintendent Carole Smith expressed regret that district leaders failed to immediately notify parents and staff when district lead testing detected levels exceeding the federal standard. The Oregonian: http://bit.ly/1UlBv9D

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CORRECTION: A previous version misstated the average increase in Pell award funds for each student.

About The Author

Michael Stratford is an education reporter for POLITICO Pro. He most recently covered federal higher education policy and student loans at Inside Higher Ed, with previous bylines at The Associated Press, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. Stratford grew up in Belmont, Mass. and graduated from Cornell University, where he was managing editor of The Cornell Daily Sun.